Green Bombshell: New Evidence Points to the Annual Slaughter of Millions of Bats by Onshore Wind Turbines

[Goldhedge]

Bat's crazy man!

Green Bombshell: New Evidence Points to the Annual Slaughter of Millions of Bats by Onshore Wind Turbines​

BY CHRIS MORRISON
24 NOVEMBER 2022



New evidence indicates that millions of bats are being slaughtered every year by wind turbines. This astonishing figure of wildlife massacre arises from a reasonable extrapolation of casualty numbers collected by a group of German zoologists. Their data cover a number of years, and more specifically a recent two-month detailed survey at a wind farm near Berlin. Germany has nearly 30,000 onshore wind turbines, and the researchers suggested their findings translated to 200,000 bat fatalities every year in that country alone. Land-based wind turbines are common across many parts of the world, and a total figure running into millions is possible.

The researchers note that the annual German losses of bats will “cause a decline of populations of high collision-risk species”. They warn that this population decline “could manifest rapidly”, since mostly females and juvenile bats get killed by turbines. Bats have low reproductive rates and may not be able to compensate quickly for the casualties, they note.

Green Bombshell: New Evidence Points to the Annual Slaughter of Millions of Bats by Onshore Wind Turbines

New evidence indicates that millions of bats are being slaughtered every year by wind turbines. This astonishing figure of wildlife

dailysceptic.org

 

[cheka]

(they) are also saving the earth by doing this. all lies all the time

 

[pmbug]

I clicked through to see the study the article is quoting and the abstract says:

... Based on data from the national carcass repository in Germany and from our own carcass searches at a wind park with three turbines west of Berlin, we evaluated the magnitude of bat casualties at old, potentially poor-sited wind turbines operating without curtailment. We report 88 documented bat carcasses collected by various searchers over the 20-year operation period of this wind park from 2001 to 2021. Common noctule bats (Nyctalus noctula) and common pipistrelles (Pipistrellus pipistrellus) were most often found dead at these turbines. Our search campaign in August and September 2021 yielded a total of 18 carcasses. We estimated that at least 209 bats were likely killed during our field survey, yielding more than 70 casualties/wind turbine or 39 casualties/MW in two months. Since our campaign covered only part of the migration season, we consider this value as an underestimate. ...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2351989422001512

They report 88 dead bats over a 20 year period at a park with 3 wind turbines. That's 4.4 bats per year divided by 3 turbines ... let's be generous and say 1.5 bats per turbine per year. These are hard figures (no estimates from study participants).

I have no idea what they are basing their estimates on, but the numbers seem ludicrous to me. If the turbines were killing bats at the rate they estimate, they would have found more carcasses while searching over the last 20 years.

 

[Buck]

what type of ground based animals live near these things? something maybe eating some of these dead bats,

imho, these machines should have never been made in the first place, they're not needed and have managed to siphon off billions of tax payer dollars per year...i wonder what that comes out to per bat?

 

[Goldhedge]

Yeah but what about

 

[pmbug]

...
No one doubts that wind turbines do indeed kill at least some birds. But a new analysis of American data, published in Environmental Science & Technology, suggests the numbers are negligible, and have little impact on bird populations.
...

Wind turbines are friendlier to birds than oil-and-gas drilling

Contrary to what opponents of wind farms fear

www.economist.com

I think this is the report:

... I combine longitudinal microdata from the National Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count with geolocated registries of all wind turbines and shale wells constructed in the contiguous U.S. during this period to estimate the causal effects of these contrasting types of energy infrastructure on bird populations and biodiversity, which are key bellwethers of ecosystem health. Results show that the onset of shale oil and gas production reduces subsequent bird population counts by 15%, even after adjusting for location and year fixed effects, weather, counting effort, and land-use changes. Wind turbines do not have any measurable impact on bird counts. ...

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.3c03899

 

[spinalcracker]

wind turbines are a scam

there are over 300 of them 15 miles from us and they have plans to build up to 500 in the next 2 years

the first wind turbine was put in about 5 years ago

there are more than 2250 wind turbines in Colorado

the ones in our county , since installed , has not reduced anyone's electricity bills

rates have went up

special trucks have to be made to haul the parts around the country

trucks carrying parts have a minimum of three escort vehicles and some of the large blades have five escort drivers

the costs of transportation are huge

then there is all the construction to set one up

surveyor's , geologists , construction workers , and huge cranes used for construction all add up to more enormous costs

the only people making big money off this are big corps like Vestas , GE , Siemens and a half dozen other worldwide corps

and the landowners where the turbines are sitting , they get a big fat monthly check

and there is nothing clean or green about turbines

one turbine catches fire and nullifies any clean energy produced by many turbines

think of all the pollution involved in transportation

and then there are the costs of building , transporting , and installing all the giant steel telephone poles to move the electricity , more pollution

then there is the decommissioning costs of tearing them down and disposal

wind turbines a big rip off both economically and environmentally

 

[searcher]

[WATCH] Remarkable maneuver of trailer turning Scotland wind turbine over bridge​